


A Turk's Life

by Madisuzy



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angst, M/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-15
Updated: 2011-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-12 22:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madisuzy/pseuds/Madisuzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tseng faces his changed perception of Rufus after the Weapon attack.  Then he discovers Rufus has Geostigma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Turk's Life

**Author's Note:**

> Just me writing off the top of my head, as inspiration hit.
> 
>  
> 
> ~~~

Something wasn't right. It kept him from rest… kept him from slipping into the peace that his body so yearned for.

_What is it?_

Tired muscles ached and pained, but still his mind just wouldn't stop. Thoughts churned, keeping him awake and on edge when his body was so, so very tired.

_Rufus…_

Why now? For so long it hadn't mattered. The boy was just a boy. A job... the one he was supposed to protect and guide to manhood. Why now was all that different? Why had everything he'd done suddenly become not enough?

Seeing him so damaged had changed everything and Tseng could not fathom why. He'd never cared before. It had all been a means to an end. A purpose. Meld him into what was necessary to lead the world. Make the boy a man worthy of the Turk's loyalty and support.

_When did that change?_

Seeing him lying in the hospital bed, broken and clinging to life had changed everything. Tseng had realized, finally seen that to him, it meant more than just a purpose, more than just a master worthy of the Turks. More than just a figurehead that would rebuild the fallen empire of Shinra.

Somewhere along the path, Rufus had become a man. An individual, a person Tseng cared for against all reason and sane thought. Someone that he wanted, with every fiber of his being, with every beat of his heart and breath he took.

_Why?_

Rufus was an asshole, plainly put. The blond didn't care, about anyone or anything except for himself. Nothing but power registered. Ruling with fear, that was what he'd said, proclaimed to them all.

But he'd stayed… he hadn't run away like the others when things had become so dire. Rufus Shinra had stayed in the tower, faced down the weapon and fallen under its attack.

Tseng respected that.

For some strange, unexplainable reason, it made Tseng's heart flutter and beat off cue. The bravery the man, once a boy, had displayed. The Shinra golden child had not died. He lay now in the hospital wing, clinging to life and still fighting his way back from the brink of death.

So very different from when they had first met.

Rufus had been only a child, lost and bereft, his mother torn from him because she had fulfilled her purpose to Shinra senior, President and tyrant of Midgar. Tseng himself had never liked the man, had spent too many missions risking his life and throwing all self respect and dignity out the window, just to get whatever the fat bastard wanted.

Being made a nanny to a spoilt brat with angelic features had never been in his plans. He had expected to die on some random mission… go out in a blaze of gunfire serving his masters before it all settled under his skin and drove him insane.

Rufus Shinra had taken all of that from him though.

Tseng had hated him at first. Rich little asshole with everything handed to him on a silver platter. The longer he had served him though, the more he had realized that all was not as it seemed in paradise. Rufus was not happy… not even vaguely content. There had always been a darkness there… something hidden, lurking underneath those cold blue eyes and far too serious demeanor that had intrigued him. Rufus Shinra, even as a small child, had an air of something more to him, as if he knew something that everyone else was unaware of. As if he understood that money was not giving him what he truly desired or wanted. Tseng could only guess what the boy really yearned for.

Tseng had been fascinated, unable to stop trying to unravel what it was underneath all the layers of fake personality. The golden child was more than he seemed, knew more than he should and understood so much more than any child ever should.

Only a teenager himself, Tseng was drawn in. Like a moth to a flame, he couldn't stop himself from gravitating to the child. Mistakes were made, on both their parts, but still, Tseng remained dedicated… somehow connected to the prodigal son with the fake smile and the too old eyes.

_Veld would have never allowed himself to be so distracted…_

But Tseng had accepted long ago that he would never be like Veld. His heart was not so cold, not so easily denied as Veld's was. At first it pained him… the weakness he displayed with his emotions, but eventually, Tseng accepted himself for what he was. He cared, about his Turks, about Rufus Shinra. No matter how hard he tried to disconnect, he could not do it.

Tseng had a heart and it beat too loud in his chest, forcing him to care.

Maybe it was a liability that the Turks could not afford, but fuck it all, that was what he was. Reno, Rude and Elena followed him anyway, not that they ever really had a choice. There was nobody else left by that stage. A handful of them, blue suits dirty and torn but still, they kept up the façade, kept up the image that they had been bred to. Turk's stood tall and kept going no matter what.

Protecting the company somehow morphed into protecting the President, but nobody seemed to object. Shinra disintegrated under Sephiroth and Jenova's attacks, but somehow, they kept Rufus alive and hidden.

Tseng pushed the thoughts aside and pulled himself upright, stood under the shower and went through the motions. He'd had not even a measure of the amount of rest he needed, but it was enough to function, enough to give orders and keep the wheels turning as their leader recovered.

***.***

More nights of unrest followed, sleepless and haunted by events of the past he couldn't change, wouldn't change because he wanted to be here… wanted to be everything for the golden child who had become a man, clawing his way back from the brink of death with the same cold determination that drove him always.

Tseng didn't understand hope, but now that he excepted that his heart was lost to Rufus, he would just live with it and see where all the madness would take them. As long as he was by the blond's side, he could convince himself that all was well… all was as it should be.

Avalanche had saved the world and Shinra had became just a another memory of what Midgar used to be.

Tseng thought the worst was over... and then one morning, he walked on in on Rufus changing, still naked from the waist up. He stared, frozen to the spot in horror of what he knew all too well was the geostigma. Incurable… untreatable… the black stain that meant certain death to any unfortunate soul who displayed the mark of an inarguably slow and painful death.

 _No… not Rufus…_

The cruelty of it had him staring, slack jawed and completely void of his usually grace and composure. The gods couldn't hate them this much. 

_Could they?_

"Tseng," Rufus had said calmly, turning and looking at his shocked face with sad eyes. Tseng had felt sick… the despair too much for his broken, messed up psyche to deal with. After a time of silence, Rufus had just sighed, too much emotion contained in such a small gesture.

"Now you know. Either deal with it, or leave. Decide now as having you standing there gawking at me is rather unnerving," the blond had remarked, pulling on his shirt to hide the bruises from sight.

Tseng was still warring with himself over whether to cry or scream, Rufus' lack of panic only adding to his confusion.

"Well? Which is it, Tseng? Are you with me, or is it time for the Turks to cut and run?" Rufus asked, sitting down with an air of defeat in his desk chair, leaning back to lock those ice blue eyes onto the Wutain's.

"We are always with you," Tseng had responded in a whisper, on automatic as he tried to control his heart ache. The deep pain in his chest was proof he cared too much, should never have let this get so out of hand.

"This is your chance to be free," Rufus had murmured. His eyes dropped to focus on the desktop, his fringe fell to cover his face... golden strands grown too long during his prolonged exile from society. "Run now and there's nothing I can do to stop you."

Tseng had just stared, heart pounding with the need take the youth into his arms, show him just how unreal the young man's fears were. That need would be denied though. Turks knew their place and their place was apart from those above them… those they protected and gave their lives for. 'Stand straight and bend to nothing,' Veld had said. Tseng clung to those words like a child to his mother, held inert by memories of the illusion of honor that Veld had beaten into him, so many years before.

"The Turks live for you. To protect, to serve, to honor. There is nothing else for us _but_ you, Sir," he finally murmured. Tseng knew his stone faced façade had fallen, that Rufus could see the truth now as plain as day, that his words were a sad camouflage for the love he felt.

"Why?" Rufus muttered, ice blue eyes piercing Tseng's with an intensity that always made his heart skip a beat.

_Can he not see? Can those eyes, all too intelligent considering the gene pool from which they came, really not see it? Or does he just chose to remain blind?_

"You are… everything," Tseng finally whispered, after too long a pause. The words were flat and lifeless, the Head Turk's heart almost spent from the strain of trying to accept the inevitable.

_There is nothing we can do to save him from this…_

"Is watching me die, really the smartest choice?" Rufus replied. His voice was cold as the artic planes, but when Tseng glanced upwards and met those eyes, they burned with a heat more akin to the fires of Ifrit. The Head Turk couldn't look away… never could, even when it was the wise choice to do so.

"I don't plan to watch you die. We will find a way to cure you. Have we ever failed you before?" Tseng asked, words laced with a confidence and strength he didn't feel.

"No," Rufus whispered, looking away but not before Tseng saw the vulnerability flicker across ice blue. it should not be there, never should that expression find life on Rufus Shinra's visage. "You have always been my strength... always been the foundation to everything I built."

"Then trust in me now, as you have in the past. We will beat this, together, as we always have," Tseng insisted. He hated himself right now… for lying… for trying to push hope into a situation that he knew, beyond doubt, was hopeless. But what else could he do? The leader of Shinra had to be kept strong, no matter the cost. The one Tseng loved could not fall into despair, even if he had to mislead him to keep him afloat.

"You truly think there is hope?" Rufus whispered, eyes turning back and meeting Tseng's. They pierced his soul, tore out his heart and left the Head Turk internally wishing for the gods to take him instead.

"Yes. Do not underestimate us. We are the Turks and we live _only_ for you," Tseng finally replied. There was no emotion in the words, but Rufus found something there to hold onto… something familiar maybe in the cold, hard lies that Tseng tried to gift him. Maybe, they reminded him of his father, in days long past.

"Good," Rufus murmured, sitting up in his chair as the desperate despair seemed to fall away, forgotten in a moment. "I expect you to brief the others and start immediately. There is no time to spare, Tseng."

"Of course, Sir," the Head Turk replied, straightening up himself and swallowing down his heart ache. "I will return with a report by the end of the week."

Rufus waved him off and Tseng nodded as he left, walking out to the others with his previous stoic mask back in place. This was what he had been trained for, after all. They would keep fighting, keep going until the last of them fell or the President was no more.

It was simply a Turk's life.

 

***** THE END *****


End file.
